IBM Simplifies Tivoli, IT Management For SMBs

The Tivoli Express software portfolio is a set of four products that provide levels of network monitoring, storage management, asset provisioning and user access that are uncluttered by the vast feature set of modification and escalation tools that ship in full-blown Tivoli, Al Zollar, general manager of Tivoli software, said last week.

The products start as low as $24 per user in the case of Identity Manager Express, and $195 per processor for Storage Manager Express.

Solution providers new to IBM can begin to show a profit on the new Tivoli line within three months of signing up as an IBM partner and completing an online sales and technical education session, said Mike Gerentine, worldwide director of channel strategy at IBM. “You can be profitable within a quarter,” he said.

IBM will sell the products online and is using its existing PartnerWorld reseller program to incent solution providers to sell the line. Recruiting efforts will be spearheaded by IBM distributors Avnet, Agilysys, Ingram Micro, Tech Data, Support Net and Synnex, Gerentine said. Becoming an IBM partner at the base Member level is free of charge, he said.

In line with traditional PartnerWorld program practices, members at the Advanced and Premier levels will receive more sales leads than Member-level partners, he noted.

Mike Todd, CTO of NorthWind Consulting, an IBM Premier partner in Issaquah, Wash., said handing most of the sales leads for the new products to IBM’s enterprise partners—who may be more interested in targeting lucrative sales of the classic Tivoli line—is an odd approach, given the SMB ties of Member-level partners. Then again, Todd said, there are only so many enterprise accounts vs. the sea of prospective SMB customers.

NorthWind will look to the new Tivoli products to increase its $7 million in annual revenue by 20 percent over the next 12 months, he said.